A Smarty Pants Surprise /NAC #37

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Hey y'all. Happy Saturday! I hope you're having a great weekend! I spent the morning and early afternoon with my daughter and son-in-love getting the last few things they needed to have for when baby Eribella arrives in just a few short weeks. We are so excited to finally get to meet her. Of course my daughter is mostly excited about just having her body back to herself. But before I get down to cleaning out closets and doing more Spring Cleaning/Getting the house ready to put on the market cleaning I wanted to sit down and get today's card done and posted.

I have to tell you when I first saw this week's sketch, I was a little nervous. Clean and simple is definitely not my cup-o-tea. But, I was determined to make a good card and not only that, but I decided to really step out of my box. Do you ever surprise yourself? Well, I really surprised myself with this one! I almost never use DSP for a background. I'm not sure why, I just don't. I bet you could look back in the almost 2 years of this blog and count the times I used DSP as a background on less than 2 hands. Truthfully, probably on 1 hand. But, I had decided to christen not one but two of my Sale-A-Bration stamp sets and I had so much Sycamore Street DSP lying around, and it's so pretty, I thought why not. And you know what, I like how this card ended up so much I think I'm going to make a few sets with it, probably as 4 x 4's but still. Not only that, but the whole card came together in less than 25 minutes and that included cutting and measuring all of my c/s and even conditioning one of my new stamps. That is unheard of for me. So I really surprised myself with this card, and in a good way too!!!! :)

Here's today's card-

Congratulations card featuring Patterned Occasions Stamp Set 

& Sycamore Street DSP and 

I'm soooo excited by how this card turned out! I almost never do monochromatic cards but I went that way because of the DSP and it just worked. 

I stamped off the jeans image once to lighten it up, and it made it just right. for the sentiment, I used my Curly Label Punch and a scrap of Whisper White c/s. I simply turned the punch and used the short edge and centered the sentiment inside it before punching. 

Here's this week's sketch over at Nacho Average Challenge-

I took just a little liberty with the sketch by adding the DSP layer. I hope those fabulous ladies over at NAC won't hold it against me. Have you played along with them yet? They have a different challenge each week, alternating between color and sketches and they are always full of inspiration and so nice with their comments.

Here's a peek at the inside-

I kept it super simple, just a strip of the same DSP from the front and a stamp and matching punch from another SAB set, Ciao Baby. I thought it went well with the sentiment from the front.  :) Well, that's all I have for you today. I hope you like and it inspires you to make something that surprises you in a good way and I hope those fabulous ladies over at NAC like it too. If you like it or have any questions I hope you'll take a moment to leave me a comment in the space below. I love hearing from you and read all of your comments. They really do make my day! If you'd like to +1 or Pin today's card I've put to buttons on my blog for your convenience. Friends and Followers are always welcome too!

Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to stop by my little corner of the world. You are very appreciated! Till Next Time-

Remember- Life is often more about the storms than the peace they seek to overwhelm. It's not about Waiting for the storms to pass, but Learning to Dance in the rain.

Be Safe-

Shan

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Thanks For Your Support Swaps

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Hey y'all. Happy Thursday. I hope you're having a good week. Just a quick post for you today.

Do you have people that give you a little needed support and might not even know they do it? My stamping friends do this for me. So when I needed to do swaps last weekend, I pulled out my For the Birds set and made a few that conveyed my thoughts for me. If the layout looks familiar, it's the same as my layout for the NAC challenge for last week, but it was perfect for this card and I was doing them around the same time so it just happened to work that way. Here's today's card-

I used some Sycamore Street DSP for the accent piece and I used some permanent markers to color the pearls to match the Island Indigo c/s. I was so happy with how these turned out. Fairly C&S but still so striking. I did them in 3 colors. Here they are all together-

Well, that's all I have for you today. I hope you like it and I hope it inspires you to try something that's a little different from your norm. I also want to tell you all a big Thanks for your continued support.  If you like today's cards or have any questions I hope you'll take a moment to leave me a comment in the space below. I love hearing from you and read all of your comments. They really do make my day! If you'd like to +1 or Pin today's card I've put to buttons on my blog for your convenience. Friends and Followers are always welcome too!

Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to stop by my little corner of the world. You are very appreciated! Till Next Time-

Remember- Life is often more about the storms than the peace they seek to overwhelm. It's not about Waiting for the storms to pass, but Learning to Dance in the rain.

Be Safe-

Shan

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Multi-Tasking & "Carry-ing On" for the Nachos / NAC #33 / My Challenge #60

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Hey y'all. Happy Saturday. I hope you're having a great start to your Holiday weekend! As usual it seems like I have too much to do and not enough time to do it in but you know there was no way I wasn't going to make time for my some of my favorite peeps, The Nacho's. That's right, I've been with them since the beginning and they are feeling like family.

On a little side note.... Can I just tell you I even got cards from some of them while I was recuperating from my recent surgery? Yep. Now, I'm not talking, e-cards. Nope! I'm talking, honest to goodness handmade-with-love cards, you know the ones we make, and put on our blogs but usually end up siting in our craft rooms and not in the hands of others for some weird reason. And even the ones that didn't send cards sent get well messages. So sweet! Thanks so much to the Nacho's and to all you Fabulous people who have managed to stumble upon my little corner of bloglandia. You are the reason I want to keep coming back to this key-board and "carry-on". And with that, here's this week's card,

I really surprised myself with how this came out. I didn't sponge any edges, nothing. And after I decided which set I wanted to use it came together just like I wanted. Yea! I used the Carry On, Hostess set from the Big Catalog and the DSP is from the Sycamore Street Set in the Sale A Bration Catalog. I used some of my favorite colors, Calypso Coral, Pool Party, Lucky Limeade and Island Indigo (my all-time fav) because they are all retiring soon. The solid color squares are all adhered with Dimensionals as are the smallest squares with the stamped images. For the square with the sentiment I double stacked the  Dimensionals on the outside for added height and used Mini-Glue Dots on the inner edges. Oh, and all of this was layered on a piece of Very Vanilla c/s 4 1/4 x 11 scored at 5 1/2.

Here's a little closer look-

I love playing along with The Ladies at Nacho Average Challenge. They always have great challenges and lots of great DT inspiration too. This week is certainly no different. Here's this weeks great sketch-

I simply flipped the sketch on it's side. Other than that, I stayed absolutely true to it. :)

Here's a look at the inside-

I have two words for anyone who thinks I might have stamped those words without my SAMJ.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! &

NOT

SO, I misjudged and started the words a little high because lets face it, when you lay the stamps out there's all that extra space around the words and I didn't want to run out of room at the bottom. This is one reason I don't like to do one layer cards on the onside, no room for oops! The good news is no one will likely ever see the inside of the card as it will most likely end up in my office to remind me to just "carry on".

Did you get the title? If you're talented enough, especially at home with a good enough internet connection you can Create, have your cake (cupcake) and shop all at the same time, and sometimes you even get to shop for your stamps and get extra stuff for free. Thats the best, :)

Well, that's al I have for you today. I hope you liked today's card, and I hope it inspires you to try something just a little different than your normal style. If you liked today's card or have questions about it I hope you'll leave me a comment at the bottom of this post. I read all of your comments and they really do make my day. If you'd like to +1 or Pin this card, I've put those buttons on my page for your convenience. Friends and Followers are always welcome. :)

Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to stop by my little corner of bloglandia. You are very appreciated. Till Next Time.

Remember- Life is often more about the storms than the peace they seek to overwhelm. It's not about Waiting for the storms to Pass, it's about Learning to Dance in the rain.

Be Safe,

Shan

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